I’d like to be an omniscient observer sometimes, omnisciently observing, instead of grunting and bleeding in the game itself.  Become a deadpan, detached narrator, paid to craft a story that makes sense and satisfies on some level.  Anything, sometimes, rather than this.

I have had an umbilical hernia probably for years.  It is one among several medical things lurking, probably one of the more benign.  The surgeon himself made no pitch for me to have surgery, pointing out that probably half of Americans have umbilical hernias.  The treatment poses problems about as often as leaving the hernia untreated does.  It seemed to be a crap shoot.  I was convinced by the noncommittal surgeon himself not to have my belly button slit open.

Two guys I know spoke highly of the surgery.  One said since the surgery he is able to walk like a man again, with his stomach sucked in.  I’ve never been able to walk that way, even when I was skinny.  The other is a man with many fears, and his fear of an incarcerated hernia, the excruciating and sudden event (and apparently very rare) when part of the intestine is forced through the torn wall of abdominal muscle, necessitating an agonized rush to the emergency room and emergency surgery, caused him to swallow his fear of doctors and have the surgery.  “It was nothing,” he said, patting his ample belly, “and I am, truly, a complete coward.”

I fancied the hernia bothering me as I sat typing recently, felt it sometimes as I strained pumping the bike up a hill, or carrying the bike up two flights of steps after a ride.  I remembered the surgeon saying “if it starts to bother you, come back and we’ll fix it.”  I became fixated on this reasonable-sounding advice, reasonably or unreasonably, and went back for the surgery.  “Well, if it’s bothering you…” said the surgeon.

Now nine days after the surgery it’s bothering me again.  But bothering me more are the words of my old friend, a long-time pediatrician.  “Why are you having a hernia operation?” she asked me the night before the surgery, the first time she heard of it. “We see kids with hernias all the time,” she said, “we almost never operate on them, unless they’re having pain from it.”

The surgeon had a glib answer for that the next day.  In children, he pointed out, hernias often heal by themselves.  Anyway, I’d already paid my $75 co-pay, was in a gown about to go into the room for surgery, my blood pressure was 140/72, it was a little late to call off the dogs.

“Most hernias in children don’t heal by themselves,” my friend told me tonight. “that’s not why we don’t operate on them.  We don’t operate because there’s usually no reason to operate on a hernia.” 

Tonight my hernia is bothering me as I sit here typing.  It could be related to the three trips I made up the flights to my apartment last night, carrying heavy bags.  It could have to do with walking around today with a briefcase that was also a little heavy.  The surgeon did tell me to take it easy after the surgery, maybe I just overdid it a little too soon.

Or maybe there was no reason to have the operation at all, and this pain I’m feeling now, although dull enough and almost mild, is a harbinger of a problem I never had.  As pleasant as my lunch and meeting with a very intelligent woman who indicated a strong desire to help with my nonprofit was today, an opaque cloud passes in front of my memory of it.  Besides, it’s been five hours and she hasn’t replied to my thank you email.  Isn’t it as likely as not that she was just humoring me?

Oh, to be an omniscient narrator.  I’d do it for a modestly discounted fee.  I’m clearly not in any of this for the money. But if you will excuse me, I have to lie down with a hand over my stomach.